Web of Deceits
by Aylalia Djo
Summary: MIA Challenge. Vader is missing in action and Luke is send by the Alliance to investigate. Set two years after ANH. Translation of my fic 'Telaraña de mentiras' by SherazadeVader.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's notes: This fic is the translation of "Telaraña de mentiras". Thanks to Sherazade, who has translate this fic into English. And also thanks to her beta. All the English mistakes in author's notes are only mine, so don't blame Sherazade._

_Disclaimer: All belongs to George Lucas, and later in the story there are characters and situations that also belongs to Timothy Zahn. Some of the story, especially this chapter, is inspired by a dialogue between Luke and Vader in Raythe's fic "Forbidden". At the end of the chapter I'll explain about this._

_The sentences in italics are what the characters are thinking._

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Web of Deceits

**Chapter 1: Revelations**

That was the worse moment so for his respirator to stop working correctly. Although he hadn't physically noticed the effect, he knew that it was just a matter of time that the side effects would start. The respirator was malfunctioning. He was certain of it.

It was not in vain that he had been incased in that damn suit twenty years and if he did not arrive on time at his TIE fighter, he would not make it anymore. In fact, although he arrived at his ship before losing consciousness, there were no guarantees that would be able to arrive at the Executor before dying.

His master had sent him to the most absurd mission that even a third category politician would have been able to solve the matter, nevertheless, the Emperor had insisted he was the only one who could solve it. He felt the rage surrounding him and the darkness bathing his spirit while he rushed towards his home faster than his dignity and his reputation allowed it.

He didn't want to think about dying! He was not going to please that viper. Now his words show its meaning: "I know, my friend, this mission seems insignificant so that it requires your attention, but believe me, your presence is vital. Remember that you must go alone and the Executor will have to remain outside the system." Soon he had smiled in an enigmatic way and he had added, "During your return trip, you must remember that in all when everything a day begins, another day must end."

He had not understood it then but he knew that eventually he would understand what he meant to say. He was used to the fact that Palpatine was sometimes cryptic in his affirmations. In addition, now he understood why that words, it was evident that he had sent to him to die, the most infuriating way: Without a fight…To die without the dignity, he deserved.

He was going to die asphyxiated in his own suit. However, he was going to fight! He was going to fight for his life, as he fought twenty years ago, when he understood that it was then when he had lost everything, when he saw himself prisoner of that suit and that damn mask. It was back then he had resorted to the rage, the pain, and revenge, to the darkness in fact, to realities that followed ahead, to continue living.

It would be same he was going to do now. Only now, his object of revenge would not be the entire galaxy, but the one who had sent to him to die: Palpatine.

When near the Fighter he felt disoriented and the vision became cloudy for a moment. His brain was beginning to notice the diminution of the air that the respirator provided him. He had to hurry.

When he arrived at the approach ramp to the TIE fighter, he took leave of the diplomats who accompanied to him.

"Shortly you will have the new news of from the Emperor" _if that reptile would be alive to receive the news_, he thought for himself full of dark rage. Without wasting time, he entered his ship and took off.

He was fighting desperately for life. Every passing moment was more difficult to maintain his mind clear.

He had to leave the planetary atmosphere and to reach hyperspace before losing the consciousness completely. Moreover, he had to program the system so that as soon as he left in his TIE fighter he could enter into hyperspace as soon as possible to the get to the Executor because when he arrived there he would be unconscious or, even... No, he was not going to think about….dead. That would not be his end.

Hardly a second after to have programmed the computer of the TIE fighter, he felt as his mind fell in an unconsciousness spiral. A feeling of uncontrollable rage invaded him and, clinging to the rage and amplifying it by means of the Dark Side; he forced himself to remain conscious a little more. After seconds that seemed to be an eternity, the navigation system indicated that it had set the coordinates to the route and, the in the brink of unconsciousness, he pressed the button that sent the fighter into hyperspace to the Executor.

Then, in a point in which he was in between consciousness and unconsciousness, the visions began. Visions from a twenty-year past while using the Darkness to forget.

First, it was one vision. That one that year's back ago had led him to be the one he was today. Padmé dying in childbirth. The part of his mind that still followed his consciousness as he tried to use the Darkness to reject the memory. However, immediately it was evident to him that he could not accede to the Force. It was there, surrounding to him, like always but he was incapable to reach it. He felt frustrated and angry when he understood that he would have to continue seeing what he did not want to see, remembering what wanted... no, what he needed, to forget... the death his angel. Under the mask, he frowned and felt a great oppression in his heart.

His angel? It had been a long time that he did not think about her with that name. Damned Jedi! Why was this happening now?

Vader was incapable to realize which part of his subconscious mind was going to the surface now that his consciousness was vanishing. Nevertheless, even in that state of half consciousness he was surprised that the vision began in a different point in which he remembered. Now, in the vision, the medical droid had approached Obi- Wan and it had said to him: "Clinically she is healthy, but for reasons that we did not explain we are losing her" and he knew that it spoke of Padmé.

Obi-Wan had asked the droid if she were dying and the droid had talked back. "We do not know why. She lost the will to live... " And, while that phrase sounded in slow cadence in his mind, the rest of the conversation became inaudible.

He had not killed Padmé, as Palpatine had made believe! Well, perhaps she died but not the way that he had believed. Padmé had died because she had not wanted to live after discovering which he had become. An almost inaudible bitter laughter arose from his lips.

Here lies the irony: He had become Darth Vader to avoid the death of Padmé and she had died because he had become Darth Vader!

However, the vision called to him and he had to leave his bitter thoughts. Although, strangely, no longer he could hear the conversations and the images seemed defocused.

He saw the birth of his son. He saw as the medical droid taking the boy to Obi-Wan. Another new big wave of rage invaded his mind. Obi-Wan had robbed his son from him! He had forced Luke to grow without his father and him to live thinking that his son was dead, assassinated by his own hand before being born! Obi-Wan's fault!

Now they were enemies and, the more he searched for the boy, the more deeply seemed to hide. He would do anything only to speak with him once and to say to him... What… Would he say that he was his father? How... he did not know him...

His mind fluctuated between the vision and his own, and something diffused, thoughts. Suddenly, something that was happening in the vision forced to him to focus again on her. Was he seeing again the birth of Luke? However, when the droid took to the baby to Obi-Wan again, but he already had one baby in his arms. There were two! Padmé had twins! A boy or a girl? The vision so blurry that not even it could know.

Next an immense rage, another feeling flooded to him. Sadness; because perhaps he never would know who his other son (or daughter) was, and to find out where the other child was. In addition, because the only shared moments with his child Luke had been of destruction: killing to Obi-Wan, of which one did not regret, of course and persecuting and shooting against the boy in the trench of Death Star.

Later after two years, their paths had not crossed again. He felt terrible, if he died and someday Luke has to discover their kinship only would have left those memories of his father.

Everything because of Obi-Wan!

_'Damn you! Where ever you are!'_ he shouted through the Force. However, if his old master was listening to him, he did not deign to answer.

Oh, Sith! If he could cling to that rage; because as the vision was advancing, the sadness threatened to drown him, more than what it was doing the lack of air. He did not want to continue seeing those visions.

But the vision followed, implacable. And, he was powerless as he saw his angel dying…. Not without before realizing the infinite sadness that dimmed those beautiful eyes that once had loved him... That still loved him in spite of the years. In spite of his own darkness, in spite of all the cruelty that, to forget he had showed all these years.

Oh Yes, he still loved his angel. Now that his death seemed so near, no longer it mattered to him to admit it.

He began to think that dying wouldn't be so bad, after all. Because if he survived, how could he go ahead living knowing what now he knew. It would have been preferable to continue thinking that he had killed her with his own hands. That he had killed her body. Because the knowledge that, which in, what he had killed, was her soul, was still much more painful. Because now, no longer he could blame anybody else about her death. No longer he could continue fact blaming Obi-Wan about forcing her taking him to Mustafar, where he thought that he had killed her.

Now he knew that the fact that she had gone to Mustafar was irrelevant with respect to her death. Padmé would have died in any other site, when she had understood what Anakin had become. In addition, after twenty years, a single tear slipped his cheek; burning his skin, more than what it had done the lava years ago. That vision vanished and, during two seconds, the absolute darkness invaded his mind.

Then, another vision arose.

He was in Mustafar, strangling Padmé. Dammed be the Force! Will those visions never going to stop? Was he condemned to see these visions before dying, everything of the past that he had buried in his mind under countless layers of the Darkness? Despite himself, that seemed to continue…Nevertheless, there was something strange in that vision. Something indefinite. He was... He tried to clarify his mind, unfruitful.

He had sworn that was as if, within his vision, somebody was having a vision of his past. Did that make any sense? He did not believe it. In addition, his soul was tortured beyond which a human being can support when he relived all the horror of Mustafar: Padmé unconscious on the ground after his attack, his fight with Obi-Wan, his mutilation, his body burned by the flames, again the death of its angel...

_'Oh, not again, no!'_ he begged unfruitful to the Force... and, finally, his confinement in that suit that now was going to be his shroud. As the images were flowing, the anguish pressed more and more to his heart.

Could not the Force let to him die peacefully, without having to happen twice through the destiny crueler than nobody could imagine?

Moreover, as if someone was listening to his pleas, suddenly he was no longer in Mustafar, the vision left him... or, at least the vision left the being he was…that vision of the being that he was.

That being... _'who was he?'_. The other being he represented directed him towards the holo-transmitter and connected it.

Although he could not recognize the being with which he was speaking, the horror, the hatred, the wrath and an uncontrollable desire of revenge seized Vader when his mind processed the words and the voice of the being that he was in the vision: "Have you already provided them to the medical droids the prosthetics, the suit and the mask that I ordered? My new apprentice is going to need them soon. "Said the voice of Palpatine with a tone of total satisfaction in his voice.

And, like a most horrible of the nightmares, the image blinked and showed another fragment of the past. Somebody was saying to Palpatine. "In agreement with your desires, your Highness, we have altered the registries of the death of Senator Amidala. Now it consists like she was deceased by strangling in Mustafar, fifteen hours standard before the real one". The ominous voice of Palpatine responded reverberating with lascivious tones. "Perfect. With that I will complete Lord Vader to the Dark Side.".

Inside the TIE fighter, the body of the Dark Lord of the Sith began convulsing while its mind sank, in the end, in a total unconsciousness, not without before understanding, horrified, that on his destination no longer would be ship waiting for him.

Tbc….

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_Author's note: The dialogue in which a part of this fic is inspired is one in which Vader explain his son that Palpatine knew beforehand what he was going to suffer in Mustafar, because his Master had ready the suit, the mask and the prosthetics when they arrived to Coruscant._


	2. Confessions

_First of all, thank you to all the people who have reviewed the fic (DarthGladiator45, Ann Jinn, Jedi Knight 13, QueenNaberrie, SherazadeVader, Dama Jade, kirallie, FireChildSlytherin5 and MagicallyInclined). Sorry for not answer to everyone in private, but I have a very little time that I spent trying to write the Spanish version of this fic. And also my English is so bad that I spend too much time for writting a single sentence._

_I want to thanks specially to SherazadeVader, the wonderful person who is wasting her own time translating the Spanish version of this fic into English, and DarthGladiator45, another wonderful person who is betaing this fic. And also I want to thanks to Dama Jade (Lady Flame), who is the person to blame for me starting to write fanfiction in response to a story of hers ;-D. BTW, I remember that all the English mistakes in author's notes are only mine, so don't blame SherazadeVader or DarthGladiator45._

_See the disclaimer in the first chapter._

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**Web of Deceits**

**Chapter 2: Confessions**

"NO", Luke shouted to Leia. "You can't really be requesting this of me!"

Leia had never seen Luke as furious as he was now. He was irascible lately. The nightmare that Luke had, six days ago was damaging his calm character; whenever somebody mentioned the name of Darth Vader, the boy gestured impatiently and his glance darkened. The hatred that Leia saw in his demeanor made her shake. At those moments, Luke seemed to be almost another person. Moreover, in fact, he seemed to be becoming another person, much more reserved, less sociable. For that reason, she had been against the idea of the Alliance in choosing Luke finding Vader's whereabouts. Five days ago, the Emperor had declared Vader missing in action.

Although the Alliance celebrated in the beginning about disappearance of that evildoer; soon the commanders started raising doubts, the following questions started to swirl around in their minds: What if it were a trap of the Empire? What if Vader were planning something against the Alliance and had planned along with the Emperor to pretend his own disappearance? The risk was too great and they had decided to investigate. Nevertheless, the Bothan Spy Network had not managed to discover anything, which was odd.

They began to think that perhaps he indeed had disappeared. Then, Han had returned in the Falcon with a shipment of food and he mentioned something strange that he had heard in a bar. A drunk assured his boss had rescued a strange model of imperial TIE fighter. He did not know why, but to Han this seemed important. He had invited the guy to another drink and he had asked who his boss was, but after several incoherencies, the only thing he managed to find out was the name of the planet that orbited the ship with the fighter.

When Han had spoken to Leia about "strange model of imperial fighter" she had thought immediately about Vader. He piloted a modified TIE fighter.

Could it be his? After commenting it with Mon Mothma, the Alliance had decided that somebody had to go to that planet to find out and that somebody had to be Luke.

Leia protested against it. Luke had been several days very uneasy and she did not believe him going alone in a mission to look for Vader would in help him at all.

But Mon Mothma had been persistent; considering his condition as a Jedi apprentice, Luke was the only one that could have some chance if he became entangled in a confrontation with Darth Vader. Leia doubted it and she repeatedly stated her position loudly and vehemently, but it had been useless. The Alliance already had made its decision and they had requested she communicate their decision to Luke.

She upset for be the one to tell Luke the Alliance's decision and also it because Luke was staring at her with that glance that, these last days, she had become to loathe. She did not understand why her request - the one of the Alliance-, had caused that reaction in him.

"I do not understand your reaction, Luke...," she said smoothly, trying to calm him down.

"What?" He interrupted exasperated. "You are asking me to cross the middle of the galaxy to rescue the monster that killed all my family: my father, my uncle and my teacher... and... And... My mother! "

Leia frowned. That was something new that Luke never had mentioned "And you say to me that you do not understand my reaction? I…don't... ". He turned to leave, incapable to continue speaking with all the rage that he had a knot on his throat. He knew that if he remained there he would unload his hatred on the wrong person.

"Luke", Leia spoke really scared due to the reaction of her friend, who had misinterpreted her words. "Nobody has spoken of a rescue mission. It is rather an espionage mission ".

"Espionage?" Luke asked without turning, with the evident tension still in his voice, but something more calmed when suddenly understanding what they were requesting of him

"And what if _he_ is in that ship...?

"You are to inform the Alliance and get out of there", Leia knew what Luke was implying and she didn't like it.

"And what if he is wounded or disabled or..." Luke insisted turning to watch Leia, the desire of evident revenge in his voice.

"No, Luke", cut Leia to him of a sharp way. She knew that his friend was looking for single an excuse to have permission by the Alliance to face Vader and she was not going to give that permission no matter what he asked. She was not going to allow that, for it suicide, to challenge Darth Vader to a duel meant sure death.

"The orders are clear: to find out if it is in that ship, to inform and to leave, without taking part of anything."

"But...", now there was almost a tone of plea in his voice.

"Luke, please, you do not insist." Leia watched him with bitterness "Don't you think I want to see him dead as much as you? What he did to me in the Death Star, allowing what Tarkin did to Alderaan, which he has done to the Galaxy all these years... I also want that he dies, but not if is at the cost of your life, Luke. I care about you. And I also do not want lose you."

Luke lowered his glance. That declaration of affection had disarmed him. He continued with the desires of revenge as before, but until he had not realized how egocentric he had been. Of all the people in the base, if anybody could understand him better, that was Leia. She had also lost her family at hands of Vader and, nevertheless, she did not go shouting to him for that reason. He knew that he had to give her an explanation, as difficult as would be but she deserved it. She had to know it.

"Leia, the other night... the nightmare..." his voice trembled and he feared that he would not to be able to continue. However, he had to do it. He looked in her eyes and said with the broken voice "It was not a nightmare... it was a vision... a vision from the past... I saw my father at hands of Vader…dying…and it was horrible" Leia took his hands between hers and tightened it. She watched him with tenderness and grief.

So that was what it had happened? Six nights ago, Leia had awakened with the sensation that something went terribly badly, listening to Luke shouting while sleeping. Leia had awoken him and Luke had collapsed in her arms, sobbing. But later, he didn't want to explain anything. "it was a nightmare, Leia", He had said to her without looking into her eyes. She had realized that there was something more, but she didn't want to pressure him, knowing that eventually he would explain it. Perhaps now was the time.

"Do you want to tell me, Luke?". Luke denied with the head and lowered his eyes.

"No, I do not want to tell you, but I must. You deserve to know what I saw. I have been so unfair with you these days, "and he was truly sorry.

"Luke, you do not need to tell me if you do not want, I..." Luke raised his hand interrupting her. It was now or never. If Leia did not let him to speak, he would never do it.

"Please," he whispered with the voice strangled by the pain that the memory of that vision still caused him, "Let me explain . . ."

She realized that it was important to her friend to share all the horror that seemed to emanate of his voice, his gestures and most of all in his dark blue eyes. Thus, she did not say anything else. She only agreed. Luke began to speak, the lost glance, fixing his eyes to the opposite wall.

"Like I have said it was a vision; most of it was blurred in any moment and I couldn't hear what they spoke. However, the part that was not blurred... well, I would rather not to have seen it... there were a man and a woman. I could not discern their faces. They were in a horrible planet, made a heat frightful and everything dyed of reddish tones because of the immense lava rivers that crossed the planet. Don't ask me how I know of it, but I know that the woman was my mother... and... He was... was... "Luke quieted suddenly, because he had a knot on his throat that prevented him to continue speaking.

"Vader?" Leia asked suspecting the reason of his sudden silence.

He nodded in agreement, "It was him... Oh, Force... He didn't care if she was pregnant... He strangled her... without touching her... like... like those tales about how he kills his subordinates... he killed her ", his voice hardly audible when he said this last sentence.

"But Luke," she did not doubt what he had said, but something didn't make sense. "If she were your mother and still pregnant and if he had killed her how do you explain that you are alive?"

Luke shrugged and she watched him with his eyes reddened by tears of pain and rage that he tried, at all costs, to avoid that they spilled down his cheeks "I do not know it, but I know what I saw."

Leia barely could hear his voice for he was speaking in a low voice "Well, somebody appeared, I couldn't make out his face, my father, I suppose... he came to defend to my mother and they began to fight with the lightsabers. Some fragments of the fight blurry that I could not distinguish anything... but, during the fight, my father was one in a position lower than his enemy was and when he jumped to continue the mainland fight... Vader…" Luke lost the battle against its own tears that began fall down his cheeks, while he continued speaking with the strangled voice.

"He cut... his two legs and an arm... he fell onto the sand... and he began to slip to the edge of a lava river... Darth Vader didn't even try to help him...the lava... lava caught his clothes and... And... "Luke voice broke. He could not say it aloud. Leia gasped. It was so horrible what he was telling her, but this was nothing because now she remembered what had awaken her before she heard Luke shouting: She had seen in dreams something like a fire outbreak and during a pair of seconds she had felt a terrible suffering.

Had she seen a sparkle of the vision of Luke?

She was almost certain of it. She was going to tell him, when he continued the story. Now his voice was loaded of bitterness and hatred.

"I felt all the pain and the agony of my father while... while he was on fire..." he nodded in denial, incapable to say it aloud.

"Vader remained there, watching him, standing up, quiet... he said to something that I did not listen... and then he turned around and left..."He stared at Leia with tears falling through his cheeks. His voice returned to a whisper strangled by his contained rage

"Not even deigned to give him a fast death... he left him there on the sand..., mutilated…burning… so that he died in a slow agony!" Luke sobbed and lowered his head, "It was then you woke me."

He felt numb, he knew that he stepped on a very slippery land, on the brink of madness a precipice that took to a plagued path of the dark, but he did not want to give up the rage and the hatred that he felt towards Vader. If he did, he would feel that he was betraying his father. Luke was so downcast, so defeated, that Leia followed her impulse to embrace to him trying to show all the affection she felt towards him. Luke didn't even move; but he allowed her to embrace him. Leia frowned, when she thought about what he had said. The boy had said something that had given to her a small hope that the vision was not exactly as he said. She let go of Luke and held his hand.

She watched him and his pain was reflected in her glance. There had always been a great empathy between both.

"Oh, Luke! I am so sorry, although... it is not that I doubt what you said.

"Let's suppose that the one who went to defend your mother was your father... "She watched him hopeful " it is possible that the fight you saw with Vader was with another person, not your father; perhaps who was wounded was another person... "

Luke nodded in denial and then he glanced to the ground.

"I know that the one was my father that was there, in the sand of that horrible planet. I know that the suffering that I felt belonged to my father." Luke felt a pressure on his chest that almost it prevented him to breathe. He raised his head and stared at the Princess

"I know of this, Leia. Therefore, there is no more explanation than that: he was my father, the one who went in aid of my mother and Vader had to be the one who fought against my father..." Leia watched him surprised. He had said _It had to be._

"Are you sure that it was Vader who fought against your father?"

"Who else could have been Leia?" he said with bitterness "In that planet there was my mother and my father, and also Vader was there. I know of it, the Force says to me that it is true. It is a logical conclusion, and also you must know that Ben told me that it was Vader who betrayed and murdered my father, it all made sense."

"Perhaps there was someone else you didn't see..." Leia said without much conviction. Vader was the only being who she knew, aside from the Emperor, who was perfectly able to do something as horrible as what Luke have just told her. However, she had to try to shed some doubt in Luke or, if the boy found Vader in that ship, he would go into a suicidal revenge.

"No, there wasn't anybody else…... who else could have been there? And Vader assassinated my father. Ben told me. It was him." He said obstinately.

Leia sighed. Luke knew to be very stubborn and hardheaded and she already knew enough not to contradict him. Well, that was only an option left to her.

"Luke, listen to me, you cannot to assume this mission. I am going to speak to Mon Mothma so that they assign this mission to someone else." Luke was going to protest, but Leia watched to him very seriously and before he could articulate a single word, she demanded: "Stay here until I return. It is an order! Luke, please wait for me." Leia left hastily through the door, and that's the reason why she did not see the hardness in the glance of her friend. Luke remained watching, challenging, the door closed during two seconds and soon he mumbled and grinded his teeth.

"I am sorry Leia. I must go. For my father, for my mother... even if I soon cause judgment for disobedience, or desertion, or for whatever reason... I must do it... for me..."

His voice became an inaudible whisper "... and for you... "


End file.
